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I’ve been a bit delinquent in my 24 reporting. I watching the 22:00 and 23:00 episodes last week but didn’t report in the initial thoughts. A shame that is, because the second of those two episodes included the perfect exchange of 24 dialogue. Jack Bauer interrupts a call between the President and the head of CTU to inform her that he, as he does every season, needs to cut a complete immunity deal with a terrorist mastermind to obtain information that is certain to prove useless in the grand scheme of things.

Notwithstanding the efficacy (or failure) of Jack’s negotiation tactics, relative to his torture tactics, Allison Taylor could not have been happier to speak with him, commenting that she was [paraphrasing] “Sorry it had taken so long for her to speak directly with [Jack] on the phone.” This comment absolutely sums up 24 in one simple soundbite.

Oh, 24. Why do you subject us to great tests of our capacity to suspend disbelief. Twas tested again, last night. And, of course, we were already planning for next Monday’s meal.

The folks came over to watch and my Mom brought her pesto pasta with shrimp and Greek salad. A fine, if calorie laden meal… one with enough carbs to get through the ordeal of watch Renee pimp herself out to a rapist and Jack show his incredible fluency in yet another language — by my count, he’s fluent in English, Spanish, Russian, German and maybe another language or two (I assume he picked up Mandarin in captivity).

Once again, it’s a Monday night in the New Year, which means family night with “24”. As I mentioned last week, my folks come over for the one show they watch to catch it on the big screen TV. The benefit to me is my Mom’s a wicked solid cook and I get a home cooked meal… and the impetus to leave work early.

As I’m going to try to do all season, here are my quick hitter thoughts on last night’s episode. Spoilers ahead, so don’t read unless you’ve already watched the episode.

In honor of this past weekend’s 24 premiere and next month’s LOST premiere, here’s an amazing video put together by YouTube user pyram1dhead. It’s a synchronization of all events during the crash of Oceanic 815. Brilliantly done, though I’m pretty sure some of the footage in the end montage is cheated on a bit.

Well, wow. Four hours of classic 24 trainwreck. The writing and acting was awful as always, but the big picture is that you can’t look away. I watch it together with the rest of my family every Monday night and we doubled up, doing all four episodes of the two night premiere last night. It was an arduous task, but aided by my Mom’s home cooking, we made it through.

The great thing we love about 24 is that, no matter how bad the show actually is and regardless of how many times they jump the shark, we love watching and shooting off a peanut gallery complaint on how ridiculous the show is this year (which comment has been repeated for every year since the first. In any regard, let me recap my thoughts on the first four hours….

Jack Bauer is back, but this time in the City. Fox’s “24” comes to New York City and premieres on Sunday night with a 2-hour run, to be followed on Monday with another 2-hours. I hope to blog about each week on Tuesday mornings. I’m going to be doing all four hours on Monday night via the ole DVR. And yes, I’m psyched.

The AV Club recently ran out their best of the decade articles for the uh-ohs decade. I thought I’d throw some of my thoughts in there on the fly. I’m sure I’ll forget several episodes, shows, character and TV events which merit a mention, but I’ll do my best.

I was shocked by how many of these best TV episodes of the decade that I hadn’t seen and hadn’t thought to see. But there are definitely some that reminded me that there’s a bunch of good DVDs I can still rent to watch while working out (e.g., The Corner, Brotherhoodand Sons of Anarchy.

Jack Bauer returns to 24 in January, with Season 8 set in New York City. Season 7 was in Washington, while all prior seasons had focused on Los Angeles.

The AV Club’s list only included the best episodes from shows that weren’t considered “premier” shows. Some notable inclusions on the list included:

In particular, I was pleased to see “Epitaph One” on there. I just finished watching the first season of Dollhouse (I should have a review up at some point). Most striking on my completion of the DVDs is how much better Epitaph One was than anything else in the first season and it really was the type of TV pilot that gets people going. I imagine that Dollhouse probably was a borderline pickup for a second season and shooting Epitaph One was probably a pilot for a second season, in many regards.